Regarding the June 19 article “Don’t blame Trump for Iran’s aggression”: I am a cranky old man and a slow reader, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear agreement) was always a tough go for me. When it was being negotiated, I had the distinct impression that the P5+1 was treading in deep water while the Iranian team was lapping them. As things turned out after the conclusion of the deal — hundreds of millions of dollars flown to Tehran at the earliest opportunity, multiple Iranian ballistic missile tests, rockets fired close to American warships in international waters, construction of new missile bunkers, specific rejection of conferring with America on anything else, an intransigent posture with respect to a full accounting of past nuclear research, the capture of American sailors and the harassing of our ships in the Persian Gulf, Iranian agents dispatched to Germany in search of nuclear technology, all with Iran fomenting terror and turmoil throughout the Middle East — my distemper was magnified.
Well, sir, we are where we are and U.S. President Donald Trump, unschooled in diplomacy and relying on commonsense, has concluded that further dangerous posturing where we play the fool is over. Let’s hope he can weather the storm of opprobrium from those who believed that conclusion of a nuclear agreement with Iran would usher the Islamic Republic into a period of cooperation with the West.
PAUL BLOUSTEIN
CINCINNATI, OHIO
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.